Creator, Father, King #117

Blessed be the LORD, the God of our fathers, who put such a thing as this into the heart of the king, to beautify the house of the LORD that is in Jerusalem.

TAKE A MOMENT TO look at a globe or a map of the world. Notice how there are hundreds of countries, but no empires?

Today’s world is vastly different from what the Old Testament Jews experienced. The ancient world was one of competing empires. Democracy? Hah! Most kingdoms were ruled by emperors who wielded enormous power and were often worshiped as demigods. Everyone had to live by their rules . . . or else.

That’s why what we read in Ezra and Nehemiah is so remarkable. Despite being under no compulsion to show kindness to conquered peoples, mighty Persian rulers allowed the exiled Jews to begin worshiping God again in Jerusalem. Look at the following examples:

• In 538 BC, King Cyrus decreed that the Jews could return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple (Ezra 1:1-4).
• After the Temple’s construction was halted for about twenty years, King Darius reaffirmed Cyrus’s earlier edict, allowing the Temple to be finished in 516 BC (Ezra 6:1-22).
• In 458 BC, King Artaxerxes allowed Ezra to teach the Mosaic law in Judea (Ezra 7:1-28).
• In 445 BC, Artaxerxes allowed Nehemiah to begin rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls (Nehemiah 2:1-8).

What prompted these powerful, pagan potentates to care about a helpless, scattered people like the Jews?

Today’s verse provides a big hint.

What’s It Mean?

As we discussed in yesterday’s devotion, Israel and Judah’s terrible rebellion against God led to divine judgment. Yet God still had great plans for his people. Amazingly, this plan involved the unexpected benevolence of secular kings.

The Cyruses, Dariuses, and Artaxerxeses of the world never would have thought to promote God’s plans if it weren’t for—well, God himself! No king is too powerful to supersede God’s designs. He orchestrates all things on earth according to his sovereign purposes. As Proverbs 21:1 says, “The king’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the LORD; he guides it wherever he pleases.”

This gives us great comfort today. No matter who is in charge—from the small-town mayor, to the president of the United States, throughout every nation on earth—God’s plans will prevail. “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him” (Psalm 24:1).

Now What?

Read the book of Ezra to see how God both intimately cares for his people and sovereignly rules over the nations.

Did You Know?

Old Testament books are not all ordered chronologically. Ezra and Nehemiah are the fifteenth and sixteenth books in the Bible, yet they detail events that happen last in the Old Testament timeline.